Rudolf Slánský - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Rudolf Slánský was a Czech

Czech people

Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...

Communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary

General secretary

-International intergovernmental organizations:-International nongovernmental organizations:-Sports governing bodies:...

after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he was one of the leading creators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. After the leader of Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

, Josip Broz Tito

Josip Broz Tito

Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...

, broke away from the domination of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

instigated a wave of "purges" of the respective Communist Party leaderships, to prevent more defections from among the Soviet Union's Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

an "satellite

Satellite state

A satellite state is a political term that refers to a country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country...

" countries. In Czechoslovakia, Slánský was one of 14 leaders arrested in 1951 and put on show trial

Show trial

The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...

en masse in November 1952, charged with high treason. After eight days, 11 of the 14 were sentenced to death. Slánský's sentence was carried out five days later.

Early life

Slánský attended secondary school in Plzeň at the Commercial Academy. After the end of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, he went to Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, the capital, where he discovered a leftist intellectual scene in institutions such as the Marxist Club. In 1921, Slánský joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....

when it broke away from the Social Democratic Party

Czech Social Democratic Party

The Czech Social Democratic Party is a social-democratic political party in the Czech Republic.-History:The Social Democratic Czechoslavonic party in Austria was founded on 7 April 1878 in Austria-Hungary representing the Kingdom of Bohemia in the Austrian parliament...

. He rose within the party and became a senior lieutenant of its leader, Klement Gottwald

Klement Gottwald

Klement Gottwald was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician, longtime leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia.-Early life:...

. At the Fifth Party Congress in 1929, Slánský was named a member of the party Presidium and the Politburo, and Gottwald became General Secretary.

From 1929 to 1935, Slánský lived in hiding due to the illegal status of the Communist Party. In 1935, after the party was allowed to participate in politics, both he and Gottwald were elected to the National Assembly. Their gains were halted, however, when Czechoslovakia was carved up at the Munich Conference in 1938. When Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

occupied the Sudetenland

Sudetenland

Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...

in October 1938, Slánský, along with much of the rest of the Czechoslovak communist leadership, fled to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

In Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, Slánský worked on broadcasts to Czechoslovakia over Moscow Radio

Voice of Russia

Voice of Russia is the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service owned by the All-Russia State Television and Radio Company. Its predecessor Radio Moscow was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.-Early years:Radio Moscow...

. He lived through the defense of Moscow

Battle of Moscow

The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, capital of...

against the Germans

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

during the winter of 1941-42. His experience in Moscow brought him into contact with Soviet Communists and the often brutal methods they favored for maintaining party discipline.

In 1943 Slánský's infant daughter, Naďa (Nadia) was forcibly abducted from her baby carriage by a woman while in the company of her eight year old brother, Rudolf, who put up resistance. The woman knew details about Mrs. Slánský, including her job with Radio Moscow. Neither Nadia nor the perpetrators were ever found. Slánský's widow has recounted that written inquiries were made to the police and to Stalin himself, all of which went unanswered.

While in exile in the Soviet Union, Slánský also organized Czechoslovak army units, with which he returned to Czechoslovakia in 1944 to participate in the Slovak National Uprising

Slovak National Uprising

The Slovak National Uprising or 1944 Uprising was an armed insurrection organized by the Slovak resistance movement during World War II. It was launched on August 29 1944 from Banská Bystrica in an attempt to overthrow the collaborationist Slovak State of Jozef Tiso...

Power in the postwar period

In 1945, after World War II

World War II

, Czechoslovak leaders back from exile in London and Moscow, Slánský among them, held meetings that led to a new National Front government under Edvard Beneš

Edvard Beneš

Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...

. At the 8th Party Congress of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

in March 1946, Slánský became General Secretary

General Secretary

The office of general secretary is staffed by the chief officer of:*The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace, a government agency for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace...

of the Communist Party. This made him the number two man in the party behind Gottwald, who became leader of a Communist dominated coalition government

Coalition government

A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...

after elections held that year.

In 1948 the Communist Party seized power in the February coup

Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948

The Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 – in Communist historiography known as "Victorious February" – was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, ushering in over four decades...

. Slánský thus became the second most powerful man in the country behind president Gottwald. Two years later, in an ominous sign of things to come, Gottwald accused two of Slánský's close associates, Otto Šling

Otto Šling

Otto Šling was born in Nová Cerekev, a village in south Bohemia, then part of the Austrian Empire. After World War II, Šling became the Communist Party's Regional Secretary of Brno in Czechoslovakia . In 1952, Šling was sentenced to death at a show trial and then executed...

and Bedřich Reicin

Bedrich Reicin

Bedřich Reicin was a Czechoslovak army officer and politician.Reicin was born into a poor Jewish family...

, of crimes against the Communist Party. Slánský participated in purging them because he did not have enough clout to fight the accusations. Slánský was also blamed for economic and industrial troubles, costing him popular support. Nevertheless, he received the Order of Socialism, a top decoration, on 30 July 1951, and a book of his speeches in support of socialism was going to be published under the title Towards the Victory of Socialism.

The trial

In November 1951 Slánský and 13 other people were arrested and charged with being Titoists

Titoism

Titoism is a variant of Marxism–Leninism named after Josip Broz Tito, leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, primarily used to describe the specific socialist system built in Yugoslavia after its refusal of the 1948 Resolution of the Cominform, when the Communist Party of...

. Party rhetoric asserted that Slánský was spying as part of an international Western capitalist conspiracy to undermine socialism, and that punishing him would avenge the Nazi murders of Czech Communists Jan Šverma

Jan Šverma

Jan Šverma was a Czechoslovak political activist, considered a national hero during the communist regime....

and Julius Fučík

Julius Fucík

thumb|Julius FucikJulius Fučík was a Czechoslovak journalist, an active member of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , and part of the forefront of the anti-Nazi resistance. He was imprisoned, tortured, and executed by the Nazis.- Early life :Julius Fučík was born into a working-class family in...

during World War II.

Some historians say that Stalin desired complete obedience and threatened purges for the "national Communists". According to this theory, Gottwald, fearing for his own safety, decided to sacrifice his longtime friend Slánský.

Other historians say that the rivalry between Slánský and Gottwald escalated after the 1948 coup. Slánský began consolidating his power within the party secretariat and placing more of his party supporters in governmental positions, encroaching on Gottwald’s position as president after the resignation of Beneš. Stalin backed Gottwald because he was believed to have a better chance of building up the Czechoslovak economy into a position where it could start producing useful goods for the Soviet Union.

Whatever the case, Slánský was hurt by his image as a cosmopolitan figure, which had allowed Gottwald and his ally Antonín Zápotocký

Antonín Zápotocký

Antonín Zápotocký was communist Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1953 and President of Czechoslovakia from 1953 to 1957....

, both populists, to tar him with charges of belonging to the bourgeoisie. Slánský and his allies were also opposed by old-time party members, the government, and the party’s Political Bureau.

In prison Slánský was tortured and he attempted suicide.

The trial of the 14 national leaders began on 20 November 1952, in the Senate of the State Court, with the prosecutor being Josef Urválek

Josef Urválek

JUDr Josef Urválek was a procurator and later judge of the Czechoslovak state court. He is known for his participation in the political processes in socialist Czechoslovakia during the 1950s...

. It lasted eight days. It was notable for its strong anti-Semitic overtones: Slánský and 10 of his 13 codefendants were Jewish. As in the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s, the defendants were craven in court, admitting guilt and requesting to be punished with death. Slánský was found guilty of "Trotsky

Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...

ite-Titoist-Zionist

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

activities in the service of American imperialism" and hanged in Pankrác Prison

Pankrác Prison

Pankrác Prison, officially Prague Pankrác Remand Prison , is a prison in Prague, Czech Republic...

on 3 December 1952. His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered on an icy road outside of Prague.

Posthumously

After the death of Stalin, Slánský was reviled by Antonín Novotný

Antonín Novotný

Antonín Novotný was General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1953 to 1968, and also held the post of President of Czechoslovakia from 1957 to 1968. He was born in Letňany, now part of Prague....

for having introduced Stalinist methods of interrogation into Czechoslovakia. Slánský and other victims of the purge trials were cleared under the penal code in April 1963 and fully rehabilitated and exonerated in May 1968. After the Velvet Revolution

Velvet Revolution

The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...

of 1989, the new president Václav Havel

Václav Havel

Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...

, named Slánský’s son, also named Rudolf, as the Czech ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Slánský was the most powerful politician executed during the rule of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia. Afterwards the treatment of leaders fallen out of favour became almost civilized by comparison: they were merely stripped of power and put into retirement.

Early life

Power in the postwar period

The trial

Posthumously

See also